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Developer may bring 1,000 jobs to old GM sites

Published 9:49 a.m. ET May 2, 2015

The former GM Lansing Craft Centre site on West Saginaw in Lansing Township is one of four properties in Greater Lansing owned by RACER Trust that could be purchased by a company this year for redevelopment.(Photo: Rod Sanford/Lansing State Journal)

LANSING – Up to 1,000 jobs could be created by a company that wants to redevelop empty properties in Greater Lansing that were once occupied by General Motors factories.

The trust handling sale of the sites in Lansing, Lansing Township and Delta Township has received a letter of intent from the company, said Steven Hayward, Lansing Township's planning and development director. He said the company has a confidentiality clause and declined to name it. The company could develop all or portions of the empty land.

Hayward said RACER Trust officials have told the township they might close the sales by the end of this year with the company, which specializes in manufacturing. He said the company could be auto related and is seeking up to 2 million square feet of space.

"We will work as fast and diligently as they will to get these properties developed," Hayward said.

Bill Callen, a RACER Trust spokesman, declined to confirm or deny it has received a letter of intent for redevelopment of the former GM sites. The trust's website, however, says all four former GM sites are "under contract."

"I can say the information online is accurate," Callen said.

The former GM sites are part of the former Lansing Car Assembly complex on Verlinden Street in Lansing, the Lansing Metal Center and Lansing Craft Centre on West Saginaw Street in Lansing Township and a 25-acre vacant industrial lot in Delta Township.

Hayward said he's cautiously optimistic that all four sites will be redeveloped, especially the 179.25 available acres in the township on West Saginaw. He believes a resurgence of manufacturing could uplift a community that knew for years that GM intended to close plants.

"It would take 20 years of uncertainty and put it behind us," Hayward said. "If you're in a relationship that you know is going to end, how much would you put into it? How much would you invest?"

RACER — Revitalizing Auto Communities Environmental Response — was formed in 2011, two years after what was then General Motors Corp. went through bankruptcy reorganization.

As part of that, GM put its carmaking operations under General Motors Co. and formed RACER to sell old properties and plants and oversee environmental clean up at the sites.